diorable: Don't worry, it's not the quality of your blog (which is excellent, by the way). After refining the quality and voice of my own blog over the past several months, I finally decided to join Coutorture, too. I have high standards, and I didn't want to apply for membership with an unestablished blog. Unfortunately, I got the email runaround for a month from Julie and her assistant, either getting passed along or never getting a reply.
Eventually, I got Julie to tell me what's going on. The official word from Sugar Inc., Coutorture's parent company, is that Coutorture is in a "holding pattern." Therfore, Julie doesn't actually know whether or not they are accepting members at this time. Although she won't say outright that they are not accepting members, essentially, effectively, that's what happening. There's a little more to the story, but I think you'll need to get ahold of Julie to have her tell you herself.
I completely understand that Coutorture is going through changes, and that in a transition period, membership might not be open. However, I find it disrespectful that she and her assistant kept me waiting for over a month, during which I sent seven emails between the two of them. Likewise, I also find it upsetting that no one has gotten back to you at all. Incredibly enough, it took me a month to find out if Coutorture was even accepting members! Technically, I still don't even have the answer to that query, but I can infer from the reply Julie finally sent me.
I hope this answers your questions. Oh, and up til now, there has been no criteria for joining (as evidenced by the poorly written ones you saw); I know some of my friends joined Coutorture when they first started their blogs. Coutorture is significantly changing, though, so membership may (?) open back up soon, but perhaps in a completely different structure.
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